sidewalk shed
n.— «Even in the current stampede of building renovations, it is unusual that all four 1920s Park Avenue co-ops at the intersection of 89th Street have put up “sidewalk shed” scaffolding for masonry repairs.» —“Intersection Showcases a Quartet Emblematic of New York” by Christopher Gray New York Times Nov. 5, 2006. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
It was a dark and stormy night. So begins the long and increasingly convoluted prose of Edwards Bulwer-Lytton’s best-known novel. Today the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest asks contestants for fanciful first sentences that are similarly...
A librarian opens a book and finds a mysterious invitation scribbled on the back of a business card. Another discovers a child’s letter to the Tooth Fairy, tucked into a book decades ago. What stories are left untold by these forgotten...